


Sleepless Night

by ofitc



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-26
Updated: 2013-07-26
Packaged: 2017-12-21 10:37:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/899329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofitc/pseuds/ofitc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sleep in Night Vale was difficult to come by, and Carlos's mind was prone to wandering.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleepless Night

**Author's Note:**

> I love love loooove Cecil/Carlos fluff, but I also love imagining Carlos's angst as he desperately clings to his sanity (and Cecil) in the senselessness of Night Vale, so I wanted to find some sort of compromise. This is the result. Set after One Year Later so spoilers for that! But no spoilers for First Date (though this definitely takes place after that and I mean, what do you think happens on an episode called "First Date," right?)

Sleep in Night Vale was difficult to come by. No sooner would Carlos get to his apartment after a long day at the lab than his phone would ring. It was always the same thing. His team of scientists had discovered yet another discrepancy in the fabric of time and space within town boundaries, a slice of pizza from Big Rico’s had been analyzed and returned unexplainably radioactive readings, another one of his scientists had mysteriously disappeared, stuff like that. Carlos would only nod, then mutter responses when he remembered that he was on the phone, then he would slip his lab coat back on and trudge back outside to his car, ready for another sleepless night at the lab.

Even on those rare nights when he wasn’t welcomed home by a phone call, sleep was still difficult. He would lie in bed for hours, listening to the strange soft hum coming from the apartment upstairs, looking out the window at the Glow Cloud as it went about its nightly business across the sky and wondering how he’d ended up here.  He’d had a mission, once upon a time. An overall objective, given to him by his higher-ups back in his old job, but he couldn’t remember what that had been.

Night Vale played with all of your senses and twisted your perceptions of the world to such a degree that even memory couldn’t be relied upon most of the time. Carlos remembered his name, he remembered his scientists’ names, and he remembered everything he’d learned at his old university, but he couldn’t remember that university’s name or anything about his old job. He couldn’t even remember his family, if he’d ever had a family. It was probably for the best. Or so he always told himself as he lied in bed at night, fighting the urge to bury his face in his pillow and cry until it all made sense again.

The humming was getting louder upstairs. He suspected a minor satanic ritual, though he knew better than to go knock on their door to complain. It was approximately an hour past midnight (there was no way of knowing, with clocks being so unreliable in Night Vale) and he was starting to give up on sleep for the night so he sat up, wrapped himself in his blanket, and walked over to the window. It was a cloudless night, and the sky was peppered with twinkling stars. He could see the Glow Cloud hovering over the elementary school, pulsating in different hues in almost hypnotic rhythm. Further away he could see the faint ethereal glow emanating from Old Woman Josie’s house by the car lot, as well as hear a chorus of heavenly voices singing along to what sounded like the Law & Order: SVU theme song. And over there, somewhere between City Hall and the dog park, the bright Arby’s sign, with its even brighter display of strange lights about a hundred feet overhead.

His stomach twisted a little at the sight of those lights. The last time he’d truly contemplated them had been the night after his encounter with the miniature city under the bowling alley. _Cecil,_ he thought, turning the name over in his head, letting it wash over him. _Cecil, Cecil, Cecil._

He didn’t know what had come over him that night. He’d faced certain death down there, amidst all those miniature armies and projectiles. As he collapsed against the hard ground and felt the blood welling up under his clothes, his last thoughts had been of Cecil. Cecil and his mysterious smiles, his enthusiasm whenever Carlos asked him for help, his soothing voice, which always put Carlos in a good mood no matter how hard his day had been. Cecil, whose blatant crush on Carlos was borderline unsettling, and yet in those last few seconds Carlos could only find it endearing. As everything went dark, he’d had a vision of himself in Cecil’s arms, and his last thoughts had been of how right it seemed, how obvious.

He hadn’t died, obviously. After Teddy Williams (who was also a licensed doctor as well as the bowling alley owner) had patched him up, he’d gone back home to wash up, then spent half an hour staring at his phone while trying to gather up the courage to call Cecil. There had been so much he had wanted to tell him, though in the end he’d barely said any of it. Cecil understood, though. Cecil always understood him, even when his words failed him. Maybe that’s what drew Carlos to him in the first place. Whenever Carlos began to fall apart, whenever he felt like he couldn’t even trust the colleagues he’d come to this hellhole of a town with, he always knew that he could count on Cecil to be there. He might seem like a mysterious figure on the radio most of the time, and there had been a time when Carlos had even found him unsettling, _malevolent_ , but he was always honest with Carlos. Too honest at times, perhaps, but Carlos clung on to him with all his being nonetheless. Cecil was the key to his survival in Night Vale, and Carlos needed him desperately.

The humming upstairs had turned into a loud buzzing now, and his ceiling was vibrating noticeably. Carlos couldn’t take it anymore. He quickly put on his pants and threw on a t-shirt, grabbed his keys, and went outside. The night was crisp and smelled faintly of peaches as he set off to who knew where. He knew that walking outside at night wasn’t the smartest idea in Night Vale, but he needed to clear his head. He walked past Big Rico’s Pizza and Mission Grove Park, cut across the Night Vale Community College campus, and then, just as he was beginning to think about turning back, he was standing in front of Cecil’s building. Somehow, no matter which direction he walked in, he always ended up there. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

He walked into the building, up a flight of stairs, and all the way down the hallway until he reached Cecil’s door. He had a key, which Cecil had insisted on giving to him (“in case of emergencies” he’d said, though he’d seemed rather happy about the prospect of an emergency happening in the near future). Cecil’s apartment was bigger than Carlos’s, and much better furnished. He found Cecil already asleep in his room. Carlos took off his shoes and climbed into the bed next to him. Cecil woke up almost immediately, giving him a sleepy smile that made Carlos’s heart skip multiple beats.

“Is it okay if I–“ Carlos began, but he was cut off by Cecil throwing his blanket over him as well and pulling him closer. Carlos allowed himself to fall into Cecil’s embrace, glad for the warmth of his body, for the feeling of their limbs entwined under the sheets.

“Something’s bothering you,” he said. Of course he knew, he always knew.

“I don’t– I just,” how did Carlos even begin to explain his worries to Cecil? Cecil might understand him, but he was still a Night Vale resident. What Carlos saw as disturbing, Cecil saw as mundane. He would never be able to fully grasp why Carlos felt like his sanity was crumbling every second, could never sense the desperation in Carlos’s kisses, and if he’d noticed the way Carlos’s hands trembled whenever they were together he had never pointed it out. Cecil understood him, but not the burdens that plagued him. But he was all that Carlos had, and he knew it wasn’t fair to resent him for things he couldn’t control.

“I just wanted to see you,” Carlos said at last. _I feel safe with you,_ he thought, _you keep me anchored, sane._ He kept those thoughts to himself, and instead planted a light kiss on Cecil’s lips. Cecil smiled against his lips then nuzzled against his neck, his fingers trailing lazily through Carlos’s hair like they always did. Under the light of the streetlamp outside, Cecil almost appeared to be glowing. He was beautiful.

Moments like these, he could almost pretend to have a normal relationship with Cecil, could fool himself into thinking his life made sense once more. He could forget all about the strange lights in the sky and the angels, forget the hooded figures and their feral dogs, and lose himself in Cecil’s embrace. Cecil would guide him through it all again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next and the next until the end of time. Cecil was Carlos’s only constant, the only person he could rely on to always be there for him.

That night, with Cecil snoring lightly against his chest, Carlos slept soundly.


End file.
